


The Chronicler

by thievinghippo



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 21:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13373502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thievinghippo/pseuds/thievinghippo
Summary: five times lucretia wrote in her journal and one time she did not





	The Chronicler

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theherocomplex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex/gifts).



> For the Best Bee. Happy Birthday! (Thank you for yelling about TAZ!)

Lucretia’s momma told the best bedtime stories in the whole wide world.

Stories full of twists and turns. Full of daring princesses and brave princes. Epic fights between good and evil, with good always coming out on top. Once Lucretia thought Momma was going to let evil win and she thought her world would end until good finally pulled through.

But night after night, the details of the stories would change.

One night, the warrior-princess wore armor that looked like the stars in the sky. The next night, Momma said it was bright like the sun. And Lucretia was pretty sure the warrior-princess didn’t have time to change.

Lucretia was four now, and she noticed these things. Bedtime was one of the most important parts of her day, just after coloring and playing with Hilde, the new kitty. She wanted to remember these stories forever and ever and ever. Remembering was a lot harder when the details kept changing.

“Momma, the prince had blue eyes yesterday,” Lucretia said. She made sure she didn’t whine, or even hint at whining. Daddy told her she’s a big girl now and big girls shouldn’t whine.

“Look at you, always keeping me honest,” Momma said with a laugh as she ran her hand over Lucretia’s head. “What would I do without my storytelling assistant?”

The next day, Momma gave her a piece of parchment and a quill and taught her how to write.

Lucretia loved everything about writing. She loved the different color inks, the sound of a scratchy quill, and the texture of parchment. It became her absolute favorite, even more than Hilde, and definitely better than coloring.

But then Momma suggested she try to write her own bedtime story and Lucretia didn’t like that idea at all. She wanted to write down _Momma’s_ story. And not just the words. She wanted everything. The expression on Momma’s face when she talked as the dragon. The way her hands fluttered as she talked about a beautiful garden.

To Lucretia, a story was so much more than words and somehow, she wanted to get the whole story down on the parchment.

She wanted to remember _everything_.

Night after night, Lucretia would ask her momma questions as she told the tale, demanding every detail. Her persistence paid off. Before long, a simple sentence like _the archer nocked an arrow_ became _the archer, wearing the blue and silver colors of the queen and holding a bow made of cherrywood, grabbed an arrow out of her half-full quicker, and effortlessly nocked it._

And Lucretia would write down every word, in a shorthand only she could understand.

Years later, the tables turned, and Lucretia found herself at her mother’s bedside. As her mother slowly died from the Wasting, Lucretia brought out those parchments from her childhood and read them aloud.

Her mother died with a smile on her face, just after the two princesses decided to live happily ever after.

#

When Lucretia turned thirteen, a famous war hero moved to the village. No one understood why he decided to move there. The village was tiny, barely on any maps. It was the type of place young people tried to flee the moment they could. People simply didn’t move there by choice.

It was a complete coincidence, if one believed in those sort of things, that Lucretia’s teacher assigned the class to write a five-page biography. And not just any sort of biography. It had to include a first-person source and no references from fantasy wikipedia could be used.

The rest of the class groaned at the requirements, but Lucretia couldn’t think of anything more exciting. Especially when the teacher announced that they would receive extra credit if the subject of the paper wasn’t related to you.

That was the moment when Lucretia decided she would write about the war hero.

He had mostly kept to himself since moving to the village. Instead of being all what a war hero should be - dashing and charismatic and full of entertaining stories - their war hero was the opposite. Cranky and given to public fits. More than once he screamed at people who only had a kind word to say.

After school that day, Lucretia slowly filled up her lungs and released her breathe inch by inch. Before she could doubt herself, she walked to the war hero’s cottage. But as she stood at the door, she wondered if this was the right thing to do.

He clearly wanted to be left alone and here she was, ready to barge into his life and ask for his time. All she could think about, though, were the stories he had. If no one wrote them down, if no one else _remembered_ , who could ever say they happened.

With that thought in mind, Lucretia knocked on the door.

“Go away!”

She knocked again.

The door opened and there stood the war hero, his hair a mess with crumbs in his beard. “What do you want?” he snarled.

_Be brave_ _like momma’s stories_ , Lucretia thought to herself. She pushed back her shoulders and lifts her chin. She might only be thirteen, but she’s tall, almost coming up to his eyes.

“I’d like to interview you for a paper I have to write.”

The door slammed in her face.

“You have stories worth telling,” Lucretia yelled through the door, fairly certain the war hero could hear her. “I’d like to help you share them.”

After fifteen minutes of silence, Lucretia walked away from the cottage. She’d come back tomorrow.

And she did. For five days in a row, Lucretia showed up at the war hero’s cottage, at the exact same time, so he’d know it was her. She knew she was being rude, that she should leave the war hero in peace, especially considering her paper was due in two days.

But he had the stories she wanted to share.

On the fifth day, the front door was open. The war hero stood in the door frame, shaking his head. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, gesturing her to come inside.

With a shaky breath, Lucretia did just that. The cottage was messy, with papers scattered all around. She ended up on a chair with at least one day’s worth of dirty laundry. As quietly as she could, she took out a journal and quill.

The war hero started to speak. And Lucretia listened. And wrote.

Her paper ended up being seventeen pages long and it could have easily been double that. 

Three years later, _War Stories Best Left Forgotten_ , written by General Luxor Melfred and ghostwritten by Lucretia, became a number one best-seller.

#

_Be brave, Lucretia, be brave,_ she told herself as she knocked on the captain’s door.

“Come in,” came the voice through the door.

Lucretia opened the door, her eyes darting around, taking in as many details as she could, before focusing on the gnome sitting behind a desk covered with papers. This Davenport had a kind face, and immediately she could sense a bit of tension leaving her shoulders.

After a quick introduction, Lucretia sat down in an uncomfortable chair and readied herself.

Davenport held up a piece of paper. “Do you know, I’ve read almost every book you’ve written,” he said. “But I still don’t understand why I would want a biographer on my ship.”

She folded her hands in her lap, expecting this argument. From her research on the mission, even adding just one extra person would require a great deal of work. From extra food, to more fuel for the bond engine. It wasn’t a decision that could be made lightly.

Which meant Lucretia had to prove her worth.

By the age of twenty-seven, Lucretia had ghostwritten more than a dozen books, and she was bored. A complete lark led her to the IPRE: overhearing a brother and sister talk about a mission at a coffee house.

The more Lucretia heard them talk, the more she wanted in. And soon, she realized she hadn’t wanted anything as much as this in her entire life.

“I am a chronicler, but I’m also an observationalist,” Lucretia said. “Your team will be making discoveries that no one can even imagine. Having me there will give them time to make even more of those discoveries, because I’ll be able to catalogue everything.”

Her heart started to race slightly at the thought. To be able to witness the cornucopia of knowledge this team would be able to find, it was everything she ever wanted.

Davenport leaned back in his chair and she worried she had lost his attention. “I’m able to remember details and words without hardly any effort at all,” she said, not wanting to sound desperate. “I can even write with both hands at once.”

Now _that_ had gotten his attention. “Both hands at once?” Davenport asked, raising an eyebrow. “That doesn’t seem possible.”

Lucretia could tell him about the years of work she’d put in, how she had been practicing since she was eight years old and saw a man do the trick at a carnival. “Let me show you,” she said, bringing out two journals and pens from her bag.

“Here, take my desk,” Davenport said, standing up.

With a nod, she moved behind his desk, which was meant for a shorter race. Even so, she managed to squeeze into the chair and set both journals in front of her. When both hands held a quill, she looked up at Davenport. “Tell me about the mission. About what you hope to find.”

Davenport’s face lit up and the moment he opened his mouth to speak, Lucretia started to write.

Five minutes later, she was officially part of the IPRE team.

#

Somehow, after one hundred years, this was the hardest decision she ever had to make.

Not the decision to go forward with her plan; that had actually been easy. Her friends were trying so hard to be brave for each other that no one was willing to admit that their plan had failed. That creating the artifacts hadn’t done just as much damage as the Hunger.

None of them would ever agree to try things her way. She understood that. Perhaps if she had more charisma or leadership skills. But she was a chronicler.

A chronicler who had a decision to make.

Two months had passed since Lup’s disappearance. When Lucretia originally had the idea to make everyone forget, she planned on keeping Taako and Lup together. Have them forget the mission but not each other.

But Lup’s disappearance changed all of that. Wouldn’t it be kinder to Taako to make him forget he ever had a sister? Surely that would be the best thing to do. Then once she had the barrier in place, then she could give them back all of their memories and a new search could commence.

Decision made, Lucretia started a list of everything Taako and Lup would need to forget about each other. The length of the list frightened her by the end.

At a knock at her door, Lucretia hastily covered up her work under a pillow. “Dinner in five,” came Magnus’ voice from the other side of the door.

Lucretia tried to remember if she had eaten lunch. Knowing the answer to be no, she stood up, her bones creaking slightly in protest, after sitting down for so long. She wouldn’t eat with the team; she hadn’t done that since she started this project.

When she spent time with them, with any of them, it made it that much harder to keep writing.

Merle and Davenport were already sitting at the table when Lucretia entered the galley. The table looked lonely, with only four place settings, because of Taako and Barry continuing their search for Lup.

Well, they hadn’t needed to set a place for her. Not tonight. “I’ll just eat in my room,” Lucretia said. “I’ve got work to do.”

Magnus stood at the stove, stirring a big pot. “You sure?” he asked. For a moment, Lucretia could see the questions behind his eyes. Because what work did she actually have to complete? Technically, their mission was over.

She wondered how she would answer if anyone ever called her out on that.

“I’m sure,” Lucretia said, her voice resolute.

Magnus carefully scooped out a portion of stew “We’ve already lost Lup,” he said quietly, handing her the bowl. “We don’t need to lose you, too.”

The words were almost too much for Lucretia to bear. She nodded, blinking back tears, and headed to her quarters. The blue journal with the silver trim sat at her desk, mocking her.

They had already lost Lucretia and she had lost them. The only difference was they didn’t know it yet.

#

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Lucretia balled her hands into fists as she walked up the stairs to her small apartment in Goldcliff. Everything around her felt cold and she knew things weren’t quite right. All because of Wonderland.

Wonderland…

She thought she was better than that. Thought she was better than leaving behind someone to die to save her own skin. But what choice did she have? If she died, eventually the planet would die, too.

So she sacrificed what she could and when the chance came, left Cam behind without a second thought.

As she opened the door, Lucretia tried not to pay attention to her hands. They didn’t look like _her_ hands anymore. They were the hands of an old woman. But they were hers now, and the sooner she accepted that, the better.

All but slamming the door behind her, Lucretia marched into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. The first mirror she’d seen since she left Wonderland.

She didn’t recognize herself.

Her hair was a light grey with a number of white strands mixed in. And her face… Soft jowls. Age spots on her cheeks. Plenty of crow's feet lining her eyes. Lucretia closed her eyes, and told herself she wouldn’t cry. She wasn’t vain, she _wasn’t_ , but to have sacrificed so much and for what?

The Animus Bell was just as far away from her now as it was before she started. A solid year of work and all she had to show for it was her own staff. At this rate, she would never be able to find the rest of artifacts.

“Davenport!” came a cry from the other room.

Lucretia left the bathroom without another glance at the mirror. There stood her captain in the kitchen, holding a bowl of cereal out towards her.

“Is that for me?” Lucretia asked, trying to keep any sort of disappointment in her voice. “Thank you so much, Davenport.”

He beamed at her before walking over the couch and sitting down, staring straight ahead. Barry and Lup had disappeared, Davenport was a shell of himself. Every time Lucretia looked at him, she wondered where she had gone wrong in her journaling.

At least Taako, Magnus, and Merle were safe. That was something to hold onto. But oh how she missed them. She missed all of them, a constant ache in her side.

She sat down at her desk, and started rooting through one of the drawers, looking for an empty journal. There she found some scrolls with that looked like her childhood handwriting, but in a shorthand Lucretia simply didn’t understand.

For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she would have kept them. Wonderland, no doubt. And before she could start to mourn for memories she would never have again, she shut the drawer.

Another drawer gave her the bounty she sought. Placing the journal on her desk, she took a breath, and wondered if this would be the journal to eventually contain the solution to her problems. If the words written on these pages would help her find the artifacts so she could cast the ward and get her family back.

With a grim determination, Lucretia started to make a list that would eventually led to the formation of the Bureau of Balance.

#

Lucretia watched the ceremony from the back of the room, her heart close to brimming with joy as two members of her family pledged eternity to each other. And for liches, eternity meant something very different than it did for humans.

The ceremony itself was quite lovely and for Lucretia, it was enough to simply be invited. She would never presume to actually be included. Not anymore.

But freedom from expectation was almost a relief of itself. After almost two years of playacting in front of Taako, Merle, and Magnus, to simply be herself again was a luxury.

The crowd started to move into the next room, where dinner would be served, and if Lucretia knew Lup, there would be plenty of dancing.

The music had already started, something with a deep techno beat, which reminded Lucretia of some of the dance parties they had on the _Starblaster_. Some nights, when things had looked unbearable, they would drink and dance right in the middle of ops. She cherished those memories and sometimes, she wondered if any of them did, too.

Lucretia found her name on the seating chart, and furrowed her brow. The IPRE table. That she didn’t expect, but perhaps that would be the table for Merle and Davenport. She ached to be included, but didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.

All she could do was try. So she started towards the table and halfway there, stopped. Taako sat at the table, along with Kravitz. As she stared, Barry sat down, loosening his tie.

And then she realized there were eight seats at the table. One for everyone in the IPRE, plus Kravitz.

Lucretia’s pulse quickened and she wondered if she should leave. This was Lup and Barry’s _wedding_. The last thing they needed was for her to ruin everyone’s mood.

But then she felt two arms wrap around her waist from behind. “Lucy,” Lup said quietly, kissing her on the cheek. “Whatever happened, you’re still family.”

She wanted to refute that, she wanted to apologize, but she also knew this happy occasion was neither the time nor place. The last thing Lucretia wanted was to make this about _her._

_Be brave, Lucretia. Be brave._

So hand in hand with Lup - and how she reveled in the warmth of her skin - Lucretia walked to the table. Taako stiffened up as she expected, but a look from Lup was all it took. Lucretia sat down, in-between Magnus and Merle, the two who had been the most understanding.

Dinner was magnificent, as any prepared by Taako would be. The conversation was even better. Lucretia didn’t talk much, only when asked a direct question. But just listening to her friends and hearing about their recent adventures felt like more than she deserved.

And then the dancing began.

Everyone eagerly left the table to head to the dance floor, except for her. Lucretia leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, content to watch them all have fun.

That’s when an idea popped into her head. Rummaging through her bag, she brought out a fresh journal and a quill. She could record the reception for Barry and Lup, give them a written account of the evening.

For one night, she could be a simple chronicler again, instead of Madam Director.

Just as her quill was about to touch parchment, a shadow passed over the journal. She looked up and saw Magnus towering over her. “I don’t think so,” he said, shouting over the music. “Tonight, you’re with us.”

Lucretia shook her head, not wanting to yell out her reasoning. It would be better for everyone if she stayed at the table, she was sure of it.

But then Magnus said the one word guaranteed to work. “Please.”

She had taken so much from him, from all of them, that she couldn’t find it within herself to deny Magnus this simple request. So she stood up and straightened her dress before following him onto the dance floor.

And there, with her family, Lucretia danced.


End file.
